Payphone
by ShellSueD
Summary: A short story about Ranger and an unusual obsession with an outdated form of communication.


_JE owns the rights to Ranger and anything else you recognize. Mistakes are all mine though.  
_

**One more thing...stick around until the end, I think it will be worth it.**

* * *

I hadn't talked to her in nearly a year so the first time I called was a complete impulse. I was thinking how weird it was to see a payphone; there just aren't many around anymore but I don't remember picking up the receiver or dialing the numbers. I hung up immediately after hearing her say _Hello _and I stood there with my palm on the black handset and my heart aching for a good long time.

I didn't realize until then how much I missed her.

The second time wasn't planned, but I was certainly aware of making the call. I waited a little longer before hanging up that time; she delivered her greeting twice before I replaced the receiver.

The third time I actually drove around for an hour looking for a payphone. The desire to hear her voice was so overwhelming I couldn't think of anything else until the need was satiated. She let out a tiny sigh of frustration before I hung up and I carried around that soft little sound in my head for several weeks.

I don't know how many times I've called her now but it's become almost a quest. Every time I'm out anywhere I consciously look for a phone. Sometimes it's multiple times a week and sometimes a month will go by without a call. I have a mobile phone. I have multiple land lines in my building but I only call from a payphone. I'm not really sure why; I guess I like the challenge.

She hung up on _me_ this time with a muttered expletive when I didn't answer her repeated greeting and it made me smile. If I closed my eyes I could clearly see her rolling hers and that made the smile widen. I replaced the receiver and headed back to the car when I noticed my guest had loaded his bag into the back of my SUV and was eyeballing me curiously through the passenger window.

"What was that about?"

I turned to Tank after I slid behind the wheel of my new Range Rover. I was testing it out to determine if I wanted to switch from the Explorers which were the current company vehicles. The Rover was in the lead so far.

"What was _what_ about?"

Tank cocked his head slightly to the right as if trying to determine if I was fucking with him or not. I kept my gaze blank even though I thought I knew what he meant.

"I have a phone and you have a phone so I'm wondering why you would ever even think about using a payphone. That one looks like it might be covered with vomit…or something _worse_."

I wasn't sure I wanted to know what he thought was worse than vomit and I was starting to regret agreeing to his request to visit Miami. Being away from him for so long made me forget how observant he is. And nosy. Tank is incredibly nosy.

"We have a takedown scheduled for tomorrow and Silvo has already put the team together but since you're staying the week do you want me to bump someone?"

He looked at me for so long I thought he might actually be able to extract what he really wanted to know right from my brain. Tank and I had been friends for close to fifteen years and no one else could read me the way he could.

"Yes," he said after staring me down for a full minute. "And I hope I'm going to get to see my goddaughter at some point."

We both smiled at the mention of Julie. "We're having dinner with her tonight. I'm not supposed to have her until next weekend but Rachel made an exception, since _you're_ here."

"Your ex loves me," he said, reaching back for the buckle of his seat belt. He pulled it across his massive chest and clicked it into place as I eased into traffic.

"There's no accounting for taste."

The line of his mouth went tight and most people would tread lightly at the look on his face but I knew he was trying to hold back a smile. "Apparently the constant Florida sunshine hasn't warmed the cold and sarcastic nature of your heart," he mused taking in the endless sandy beaches as we cruised down the coastline.

There are only three people in my universe that can make me laugh and Tank is one of them. "Do you want lunch?" I asked after I finished.

"Only if it's that little empanada place you took me to the last time I came down here."

I turned at the next light and drove right to it. There was an old battered payphone in the small parking lot and my eyes were automatically drawn to it when I pulled into an empty space next to the door. The handset had been cut away and only a frayed silver cord dangled from the box. That was probably best since I'd called not thirty minutes ago. Avoiding more questions from Tank was also high on my list of priorities.

We munched on chicken and beef empanadas and talked about the growing Miami branch of Rangeman, LLC. I'd come down here eighteen months ago to get it off the ground and now it was almost as successful as the headquarters in Trenton. My business partner ran most of the day to day operations so there was no longer a work related reason for me to still be here but I hadn't found my way back to New Jersey. Tank knew all this and I wondered when he would ask about my return.

I didn't have to wait long.

"Do you want to know what's been going on in Trenton?" He popped an entire stuffed pastry into his mouth and chewed while he waited for an answer. That was a complicated and fully loaded question and we both knew it.

I decided on a non-committal half shrug as a response and took a sip of iced tea. There were a dozen things I wanted to know about Trenton but not one of them had anything to do with my business.

Tank came as close to rolling his eyes as I've ever seen. "We got the account with Sanford Jewelers," he tossed out casually. I knew that already, a copy of the contract hit my email this morning.

I nodded and finished off the last chicken empanada. "That's good. We just need Arthur Bergmann's place and we'll have all the high end stores in Jersey."

"Mmmm," he confirmed and started in on his side salad. "That's in the works but Bobby's dating his daughter so it might get complicated."

I raised an eyebrow. We had a strict no fraternization policy, but since they weren't technically a client yet I couldn't really object.

"I know," Tank said at my look. "I've talked to him about it but he thinks he's in love."

If it was Lester, I would have scoffed at the notion and told Tank to shut him down, but to my knowledge, Bobby has never professed his love for anyone before now so I was hesitant to intercede. Who was I to stand in the way?

"It wouldn't be the end of the world if we didn't get the account. I bet Arthur is pitching a fit."

Tank gave me a small smile. "Well, since Bobby isn't rich, white or Jewish, you could say he's less than pleased."

"I'll bet." I finished my iced tea and ordered another. "What's going on with everyone else?" I have to admit I kind of missed the rest of the Trenton crew. They were a bunch of assholes but they were good at what they did I would trust any one of them to have my back.

"Ram got called back to active duty; he left for Afghanistan last week. Woody broke his foot horseback riding and is whining about having to sit monitor duty for the next month. Vince thinks a girl he picked up at the Pink Flamingo gave him crabs and Santos may or may not be the baby Daddy of two kids – two different women."

I pushed back from the table and crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm almost sorry I asked."

Tank took the final bite of his salad and then said, "I'm sorry you left me there to deal with all this shit. I shouldn't have to tell a grown man how to avoid getting an STD. I still can't believe I had to have that conversation."

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," I said with my cold, sarcastic heart and tried not to laugh at the murderous expression on his face.

"Yeah, well it's time the crown is back on the head of its rightful heir. Are you ever coming home?"

I considered the question for longer than reasonable and finally had to give his penetrating stare an answer. "I think this might be home now." I hoped he would leave it at that but his double raised eyebrows forced me to expand.

"I'm enjoying my time here with Julie. We're finally getting close and I don't want to do anything to disrupt that." It was an excuse and he knew it. It happened to be true, but I only had visitation with her one weekend a month and that was something I could still have if I went back to Trenton. It certainly wouldn't be a hardship to travel to Miami once a month.

"Bullshit," Tank said, clearly not convinced as he mirrored my posture. "Anything else you want to know about in Jersey," he asked pointedly and I shifted my weight. I was not having this conversation with him because he knew full well that I did and he was using it against me to get what he wanted.

"No," I said forcefully and with as much finality as I could muster, but my mind screamed _YES _and I was half afraid he could hear it. I wanted to know _everything_. I wanted to know about her hair, if she still pulled it into a ponytail when she was working. I wanted to know if she still smelled faintly of doughnuts and French fries. I wanted to know if she was still destroying cars at an alarmingly rapid rate. I wanted to know if he'd convinced her to quit her job after they were married and become a burg housewife. I wanted to know if there was a kid running around with black hair and her bright blue eyes...I wanted to know if she was _happy_. That last thought twisted in my chest with a painful clench.

I wanted to know it all and I didn't want to know any of it. I think it's why I can't ever bring myself to say anything when I call. I want her to be happy, I do, but if she is, if she is living her life the way she wants and she's happy – _truly_ happy - I really don't want to know.

I bolted up out of my chair, almost knocking it over. "Let's get out of here," I said, dropping cash on the table. "I have some work to get done before we pick up Julie tonight."

Tank followed me out of the café and we drove in silence to the Rangeman building. I was thoroughly pissed at him and couldn't seem to put a cap on it so I thought it was best to keep my mouth shut. I didn't really want it to come to blows between us and the way I felt, it could easily tip that direction.

I pulled into my spot in the underground garage and cut the engine, exiting the vehicle before he could stop me. I headed for the stairwell without a glance back.

_"Rick."_

There have only been a handful of times he's used my given name and it gave me pause. I stopped at the door to the stairs but didn't turn around.

"Sorry I pushed."

There have been even less times he's apologized as we never say things to each other we don't mean so that also gave me pause. I slowly spun to face him and found him leaning against my truck, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and a look of contrition in his eyes.

I inhaled deeply and let the anger flow out with the expelled breath. "Find Silvo and get briefed for tomorrow night. Tell him to reassign Diego. I'll meet you back here at six."

He nodded his accord and I took the stairs to my office.

###

Dinner with Julie was a good time. She was thrilled when I showed up with "Uncle Tank" and she chattered at him incessantly as we headed to her favorite Italian restaurant. I hadn't seen him smile that much in a long time and Julie's easy rapport and her infectious laughter erased the last of the remaining tension between the two of us.

We stuffed ourselves with spaghetti and meatballs and I watched them top it off with tiramisu while I sipped a cup of coffee. As it often did whenever my daughter was involved, the conversation veered into The Magic Kingdom territory and I only protested mildly when she tried to get Tank to agree to take her to Disney World the next time he came to Florida. The kid was nuts for Mickey Mouse. I'd taken her at least a dozen times myself.

We both got a kiss and a hug when we eventually had to end the evening. We skated in just under Rachel's ten o'clock curfew and because she found Tank charming, I didn't even get the disapproving look that always seemed to pass over her face whenever I brought Julie home.

"Do you even realize what you've done?" I asked as we left Julie's driveway.

"What do you mean?"

"Disney World? She's a maniac for that place. She won't let you leave until the park shuts down; even I was exhausted by the time we left there last time." I turned onto the highway on-ramp and caught his grin out of the corner of my eye. I slowly shook my head.

"I can't say no to her," he confessed with a full-blown smile.

I shook my head again and sighed. "I know. Me either."

"And she _knows_ it," Tank said with a laugh and I had to join in. I let the little shit manipulate me so I couldn't really be mad.

We discussed the takedown scheduled for the following night on the rest of the drive.

"Who's the woman?" Tank wanted to know. It was a classic distraction job and a female was the fastest way to get it done.

"Her name is Mel. She used to work for Les Sebring but moved to Miami a couple years ago. She's a friend of Jeanne Ellen's."

"She any good?"

"Not as good as…" I caught myself before I said her name and was expecting Tank to finish my sentence but he wisely kept his mouth shut and only half raised his eyebrow…"some others I've seen, but she'll get the job done."

"Great," he said after a beat. "Should be finished early then. I want to check out that new club in South Beach. Some of the guys were talking about it this afternoon. You up for it?"

"Sure," I agreed, although a dance club was the last place I wanted to go. We ended the night with a fist bump on the third floor of my building. It housed all the utility apartments and Tank was staying in one of the vacant ones we used for guests. I continued up to the penthouse alone and tried to keep my mind focused on anything but her. It was a futile effort at best. Being around Tank all day made it worse and I was now actually dreading the upcoming week of his company.

###

As expected, the takedown the following evening went off without a hitch and even the club wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated. Normally I avoid those places – they are too crowded and the clientele can be volatile at best and downright violent at worst. But the women were gorgeous and usually outnumbered the men two to one so the Rangeman employees could be found on the strip more often than not.

I left relatively early, tired of fending off the constant barrage of pretty faces that seemed to be making it their life's mission to get me to dance with them. I got a questioning glance from Tank but that was it. He was tightrope walking around me and normally I wouldn't allow it - our friendship has lasted this long because we're nothing but honest with each other but I didn't want him to try and talk to me about home again so I let it play out.

The rest of the week went by fairly quickly. We had one more dinner with Julie, met with a list of potential new clients, hit one more club with the crew and managed not to talk about anything I didn't want to discuss. I also managed to keep my payphone adventures to a bare minimum, only calling once during an early morning run, so I was rather relieved to be on the way to the airport and looking forward to maybe getting a full night of sleep after he was gone. As I pulled into the passenger drop-off lane, I was thinking about how I could put off having him come back for a while, but Julie had her heart set on running us ragged at Disney and I wasn't about to disappoint my little girl so I'd have to suck it up.

The car came to a stop and I was surprised when Tank didn't immediately open his door. The security lines at Miami International were notoriously long and I reminded him of that when he stayed in his seat, staring out the windshield.

"I understand why you left," he said completely ignoring my concern about missing his flight. "I can't say I wouldn't have done the same if I'd been in your position. It must have torn you apart. And I guess I should have told you, especially since you never came back, but we aren't that way. We don't interfere in each other's personal lives so I kept my mouth shut."

I was at a complete loss and told him so. "What the fuck are you talking about, Tank?"

He turned from the window and fixed his dark gaze on mine. "She called me around six months ago with concerns about a potential stalker. It seemed she'd been getting a series of phone calls and she wanted to know if I could find out who was making them."

I tried to keep my face neutral but I could feel my eyebrows rising against my will. Of course she'd try and figure it out. I should have known better. With her uncanny ability for attracting the worst kind of asshole, I'm lucky she didn't ask her husband to have her mobile phone tapped.

Tank worked the muscle in his jaw as if debating the wisdom of telling me what was next. "I told her they never lasted long enough to trace but that wasn't exactly accurate. A few were. Every single one originated from Miami. One was from that bank of payphones right there." He pointed to the phones across the lanes in the parking lot. I didn't deny it and he didn't push for a confession.

"I'll never forget the look on her face when I told her I couldn't give her an answer."

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and narrowed my eyes in question.

"She was hoping I would tell her it was you."

I cut my eyes to the phones across the street. I remember the first night I called from here. It was raining, hard, and I stood there getting soaked with my hand over the mouthpiece so she couldn't hear the rain. It was loud but I could hear her clearly and it sounded like she'd been crying. I almost found the balls to talk to her then but she hung up before I got any words out and I didn't call back. I spent the next hour driving around wondering why she was upset and plotting the death of whomever it was that had caused those tears.

"Why would she ever hope that, Tank?" I asked, keeping my gaze on those phones.

He opened his door and retrieved his bag from the back seat. I finally turned my head to look at him and he had one hand on the open door and the other held his duffel. He was leaning into the cab so he could see my face.

"She never married Morelli, Ranger."

And then he closed the door without another word and headed into the airport.

I sat there in stunned silence until airport security asked me to leave. I drove home slowly, taking the side streets instead of the highway and tried to come to terms with the unexpected information I now possessed.

I didn't run immediately when I heard about her engagement but it wasn't long after. My trip to Miami was already scheduled but at the time that's all it had been, a trip. I planned to be gone a month at the most but after that thirty days went by I found a reason to stay another thirty and another thirty after that. Six months later I knew I wouldn't be going home. I chose the easy path – the one the hurt the least - and I never looked back. I didn't want to see the ring on her finger. I didn't want to see her look at him the way I wanted her to look at me. I didn't want to see her happy with someone else.

That night, the night she got engaged, I'd decided to tell her that I was in love with her but on my way to her apartment I got the call and instead I drove to the closest bar and proceeded to drink my weight in vodka. Two weeks later I was on a plane to Miami.

But she hadn't married him. What the hell? I wanted to be angry with Tank for not telling me sooner, but that was all on me. I had a million chances to ask and couldn't find the courage to open my mouth.

The low fuel indicator signaled, interrupting my overloaded mind. I stopped at the first gas station I came across and as I was filling the tank, I saw a lone payphone attached to the side of the building. I don't remember returning the nozzle to its slot on the pump and I don't remember crossing the open space to the mini-mart, but the receiver was suddenly in my left hand and my right was dialing the numbers I knew I would never forget.

She answered on the fourth ring and my breath caught in my throat. The other calls were easy because I knew I'd never say a word but this one was different. _Everything_ was different now. I let out the air slowly but before I could speak I heard her voice again.

"Ranger?"

My eyes fell closed at the sound of my name and I dropped my forehead onto the edge of the metal box housing the phone.

"Tell me it's you," she said softly and I could hear my own heart beating wildly beneath my shirt. I swallowed hard and said the only thing I could think of.

"_Babe."_


End file.
